Latest talk says Ford-VW partnership will lend German identity to NZ-bound E-Transit Custom … and is putting PHEV into Amarok.

ELECTRIC Fords signed up for New Zealand seem increasingly certain to spawn identical Volkswagen equivalents whose nameplates already represent here.

Thought that Amarok, Germany’s restyle of the Ranger, will also adopt the plug-in hybrid system just announced for the Blue Oval ute has firmed.

There’s more evidence the battery-assist edition due in early 2025 will not come from the factory in Thailand producing wholly fossil fuel-reliant Rangers for NZ but instead source from the plant in South Africa.

That Silverton facility already supplies VW Amaroks to New Zealand (hence why they have a FoMoCo inscription on the windscreen) and Rangers for Europe, a primary future market for the electric-assisted kind.

Now there’s talk of another conjoined project relevant to NZ from the brands’ landmark partnership agreement, signed off in mid-2020.

This one involving a breakthrough electric Ford van.

The website for globally-significant weekly British motoring magazine Autocar is reporting the next-gen of VW’s core commercial model, the Transporter (below), will go fully electric - and do so by being based on the brand-new Ford E-Transit Custom (above).

The latter is one of one of five new hybrid or electric Fords to be in NZ by 2025 – joining the full-size E-Transit electric van here now.

Ford NZ signalled on April 7 it will achieve E-Transit Custom with a 74kWh battery pack– with cells shared with the Ford F-150 Lightning electric pick-up that sells in North America – and a 160kW/415Nm driving the rear wheels.

That’s a surprising turn as the new Transporter was previously expected to be based on the full-size electric Ford Transit that is now on sale here.

However, Autocar and other specialist media in Europe are firm that the VW edition will be based on the smaller Custom and be built at big Ford plant in Turkey. Interestingly, the NZ-bound Fords aren’t coming from there, but instead are set to source from a factory in Romania alongside the NZ-market Ford Puma crossover, with which it shares a platform.

Either way, it’s a big change for VW, as current Transporter comes out of a big VW commercial vehicle production facility in Hanover, Germany.

The decision to morph Transit in Transporter marks the first time the latter will be available in all-electric guise. Autocar says it will be sold in a variety of trims and configurations including a nine-seat Shuttle, two-row Kombi, and a cargo-carrying panel van, along with a possible Sportline model.

With these changes, the Transporter will no longer serve as the basis for the California camper, however, which will soon be based on the Multivan MPV instead.

Transporter is expected to use Ford’s drivetrains - so, not only the PHEV but also a diesel variant.

The main differences between the two models will be as they are with Ranger and Amarok - they’ll come from exterior and interior design, with each sporting its own distinctive look in that regard.

Latest talk about PHEV Ranger, meantime, sources from a top automotive news website in South Africa. Cars.co.za reminds that not only is Silverton a very big production point already - the Ranger programme there stems from a $1 billion dollar renovation and it’s not just as assembly point. The factory also builds the 3.0-litre V6 and 2.0-litre biturbo diesels that span all Ranger variants, the Raptor included.

The website has also picked on a top Ford specialist on electrification, who currently bases in Chennai, India, having identified via social media that she is “currently working” on the Ford Ranger PHEV “battery pack assembly process” for the Silverton plant, and also notes that she has a “high-voltage safety level 1 battery pack assembly” certification.

On top of that, cars.co.za says, Ford currently has a job listing posted for a “Battery Assembly Engineering Specialist” in South Africa posted on its global careers site, along with listings for an Engineering Specialist, Battery Assembly; an Engineering Controls Specialist, Battery Assembly; and a Production Process Coach, Battery Assembly – all in South Africa.